The Watercolorist (Daniel Rodríguez, 2008): Peru

Reviewed by Aleksandra Mraovic. Viewed at The Santa Barbara Film Festival.

The Watercolorist (El Acuarelista) is an artistic and beautiful movie shown at the Santa Barbara´s film festival that makes you want to be an artist. Even if you don´t have an artistic side, the movie will inspired to start painting. The use of brush strokes and the colors in the paintings makes the movie beautiful. In my opinion, even though the movie was amusing and interesting you wouldn´t see the movie twice.

El Acuarelista (The Watercolorist) is the story of an office worker who decides to leave his ordinary life and follow his dream. His passion has always been to be a watercolorist so he decides to move into an apartment and dedicate his life to painting. He wants some peace and quiet so that he can concentrate, which he soon discovers is impossible. The neighbors’ bother him all the time by knocking on the door, blaming him for accidents and wanting him to do paintings for the building. Every time you get to see him paint somebody interrupts him. After a couple of interruptions, even the audience watching the movie got annoyed with the neighbors’. One might wonder why he doesn´t move after a couple of incidents, but there is a woman involved.

The music combined with brush strokes makes the movie beautiful. You can hear the waves washing up on the seashore while he paints the water in his picture. The director made the movie funny and absurd so you don´t get bored when watching it. Miguel Iza, the painter, does a really good job as a painter that keeps to himself and disconnects himself from the outside world. Prior to this movie, Miguel Iza, has done a lot of Peruvian movies such as Django: la otra cara and Ojos que no ven.

As I mentioned before, it is definitely a beautiful and colorful film but not for everybody. If you have an artistic side or you just want to be inspired to paint then this is the movie for you. On the other hand, it can be relaxing to watch a movie that is harmonies and unruffled.